QB Not Passrusher

My respected friend and I disagree about the second overall pick.  He wants Bosa out of Ohio State rather than a quarterback.

I started researching previous drafts, planning to lower da boom on him with statistics on top five quarterbacks vs top five passrushers, then lower picks at each position, but I hit a wall.

That is, as many top five passrushers succeed as top five quarterbacks.

My friend says that the quarterbacks for the Browns all played well, and the only real problem with the team was the defense.  He's got me there, too.

But I did find a bunch of dangerous passrushers drafted in the second and third rounds.  I also noticed that very few of the top fivers emerged until late in their first seasons, and those picked lower were only a little behind them.

More specifically, two of the guys I found on the second tier were Scott Solomon and Nate Orchard.  Solomon went on IR early this season, but had become the starting strong side olb, and had demonstrated a nice ability to get at quarterbacks.  When he went down, Paul Kruger was (rightly or wrongly) moved to that side.  Most of his previous success had come from the weak side the previous season.  (Not sure why, but I think it was less chipping, and the fact that Kruger relies more on leverage and power than speed).

Nate Orchard went nuts against Kansas City.  It had taken him awhile to earn significant playing time, and he was stifled by the complexity of the defense (btw he and Kruger were both in coverage a lot...?)

The point here is, I feel that waittilnextyear is selling all three of these guys short.  

There's a good chance that the next coach will see that Kruger is better on the weak side, and that none of them belong in coverage more than necessary.

Hell, for all we know the next DC will use a 4-3 and use them at DE!  (Maybe not Solomon.  He's a real linebacker).

We went back and forth on this a bit.  He referred to Goff as a "project", and I feel he sold him short as well.  Braxton is a project.  Not Goff-although neither should ideally start game one.

Wattilnextyear is right about passrusher for now being more important to this team.

But Manziel looks more and more doubtful.  McCown will be 37 years old and is all beat up.  What about 2017 and beyond?  Josh McCown redux is good enough to make sure the Browns don't draft in the top five next season.  If I'm right about the passrushers I'm trying to dig out of premature graves now, and a simplified defensive system next year, the Browns won't even draft in the top ten.  If the Browns drafted Bosa, it would be even worse (the guy IS a beast!).

Then McCown retires, and a guy named Joe tries to take the Browns to the promised land in 2017.

The quarterbacks who have made the playoffs this season include one second-rounder (Bridgewater), third rounder Wilson, and Brian Hoyer.

Bridgewater has AP and a good defense.  Wilson has the running game and the defense...and I must admit is elite himself.

But as this plays out, you can see the writing on the wall.  You can pick the teams who will be there at the end of it by naming the quarterbacks: Palmer, Newton, Wilson, Big Ben, Brady (forgot about him!)

You can say Wilson was a third round pick, and Brady a sixth round pick.  But if you have a brain, you don't buy lottery tickets in those rounds.  And Minnesota made it behind Peterson, not Bridgewater.

You find your quarterback where they drafted the other four guys.  Year after year, this is the same.

Now: Who is the Patriots passrusher?  The Rams have several.  So do the 49ers.  Who's Seattle's first round watch-out-for-him passrusher?  How about the Steelers?  Harrison, maybe?  Undrafted James Harrison? They've drafted several in the first round, y'know.  Where are they?

Quarterback remains the most important position in football.  Passrusher is the second-most important.

You don't build a team to go 8-8 next year, and then scramble for a new quarterback.  You build it to last, around THE most important position in football.

Goff, as I said twice before, is like Bernie Kosar.  Not a project.  He reads, checks down, commits, stands strong.  Called his own protections, changed plays, burned blitzes.

Give the new DC, Solomon, Kruger and Orchard their chance.  Draft the high-percentage evolved polished brainy quarterback and go from there.

We could agree to disagree, but I disagree with that unless you agree to agree.